Wednesday, December 14, 2011

This was the opening crew of the Meridien Hotel in Nice on the Cote D'Azur in the south of France. The first photos are of the crew including the Executive Sous Chef Monsieur Febway in one of the local restaurants. The second lot of photos are of the hotel after opening with the Executive Chef Maurice Brazier front and center. It was a great time looking back on it now.

The music is a theme on someone turning fifty years of age and I put it on purposely because most of these kids are now in their fifties and sixties. I am still in touch with my good friend Bernard after all these years.l

Sunday, December 11, 2011

More photos of this event will be added later. These were taken at the Bocuse even in Strings and include Robert Fedorko who is the Chef at The Grand Geneva Resort. As soon as I find the photos I will post them.

A friend of mine passed away the other day.

He is most certainly in heaven and heaven is a nicer place for his being there. We are a sadder place because of his departure. He is probably organising dinners for the less fortunate people up there. Less fortunate people in heaven must be a rare thing but if there are any , he will certainly find them.

When I was an apprentice in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin in the early sixties there was a young and dynamic sous chef by the name of Dessie Cunningham. All of us kids loved him because he had lot of ideas and we were able to relate to him more as a big brother figure than as a father figure like the older chef and sous chefs.

I don't know what happened to Desssie but he didn't stay very long at the hotel. I think the older chef did not like him and he was eased out. I remember the chef embarrassing him one day in front of the staff so I knew something was going on between them. We were so low on the totem pole that we were mere observers to events.

I left for London a couple of years later and worked in various hotels and then decided I needed to go to college so I enrolled in Westminster Technical College in London for the culinary and hotel program. These courses were required and carried a lot of weight in the business. I was very lucky to get in and get such a wonderful professional education in that great city.

The day I started at the school ( another story ) I noticed this sheepish looking fellow who was around my own age among my fellow pupils, he seemed very shy, very eager to please and very nervous. I was a little nervous myself to say the least but seeing someone more nervous than I was made me braver. ( This was the charming effect Noel had on people ) This was a completely new experience and I didn't know what to expect. Nobody wants to look like a fool on their first day. We were both a little older than the average student in the class and we had a lot more practical experience than the others given that they were just starting in the industry and we had a few years experience under our belts.

This sheepish looking fellow with the downcast eyes and humble demeanour had a thick Dublin accent, so after a few sidelong glances and general summing up we naturally started talking. It turned out that his name was Noel Cunningham. The name didn't ring a bell right away but over the next few conversations I discovered that he was my old sous chef DessieCunningham's son. Who knew ?

We became good friends over the next few months. Noel was married and I was single so we didn't socialize a lot after school. His wife had recently given birth to twin girls who are now beautiful adults. The pay in London in the hotel industry was not very high in the sixties and the hours were very long so this added to his worries. I can still see him sitting in front of the electric fire in the flat in London wringing his hands. He had that little brother quality that made you feel protective of him and at the same time in awe of his unassuming personality. As a counter to that he had an amazing amount of focus and determination. He was a wonderful cook and cooking was his life.

He had that enviable quality of making people feel good about themselves and really listening to what was being said by the person he was talking to.

He was kind hearted and would do anything to help those in need. I remember one day he told me that he had loaned one of the dishwashers in the Savoy a pound note. The dishwasher was Irish and straight out of George Orwell's depiction of life in hotels as a dish washer in Paris. I asked him why he had lent him the money given that he didn't have any money himself; he replied, " Well he's one of our own ". A pound note in those days was a princely sum and would buy many a pint of Guinness or a nice flower power shirt on Carnaby Street but these things were far from Noel's mind. He never saw the pound note again but he shrugged it off.

The axiom ' he would give you the shirt off his back' was coined for Noel Cunningham and I can easily imagine him doing just that.

The culinary field can be very stressful, especially in the formative years where those who are very conscientious strive for absolute perfection. There are many nights sleeps lost and days off ruined because something had gone wrong during the service the night before and this perfection was not achived. None of us in this industry are strangers to the stress of not living up to our own standards. This was exaserbated in the big London hotels by the dogmatic approach to the field. There was no free and easy ad lib cooking and dishes were dictated by a book by escoffier which was read like the bible by all aspiring chefs in the hope of retaining the words of the master.

Noel would take this stress to a very high level because he really loved what he did. I can still hear him mutter on the way home from school or on break that such and such did not turn out the way it should have.

Shortly after I left London for Germany I lost contact with Noel but I knew he had moved to the United States and was working in Los Angeles. The US was the furthest thing from my mind at that time. There were far more exciting places in the underdeveloped world and the food world in the USA was not as developed then as it is now.

Twenty years later I found myself in the Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle and the 'phone rang in my office: it was Noel welcoming me to the US. I was surprised and delighted to hear his voice. He had opened and owned a very successful restaurant in Denver, Colorado and was doing very well. A few years later he came to visit me at my hotel in Palm Springs and I saw him again over the next few years. .

He had found great happiness in his second marriage to Tammy.

He rang me in the nineties and asked me to come to Denver to help him translate and cook for a dinner for Paul Bocuse at his restaurant. I did so and the dinner was a great success. The next day there was a luncheon for all the chefs in the city at one of the major hotels in Denver in honor of Bocuse. This was a very prestigious lunch and was attended by all the leading restaurant movers and shakers in Denver.

On the way into the lunch Bocuse said to me " Let's us French sit together ". I naturally told Noel to join 'us French' at the table. After lunch Noel came to me and told me how proud he was to sit at Bocuse's table. He thanked me for the invitation. I think Noel didn't realize that, as the host of the event' he was more entitled to sit at Bocuse's table than anyone. His unassuming and almost humble approach to life was one of his most endearing sides of his personality

This was the essence of Noel; he would never assume that he would be invited even though the dinner was held in his very successful restaurant and he had a very prominent place on the Denver food scene. This was both his charm and his strength.

He was a gentle and caring man and that very rare thing- a true friend.

Noel Cunningham committed suicide last Thursday afternoon in Denver Colorado. He was just sixty two years of age. I hadn't spoken to him in a long while and that made me feel even more sad.

BORSCHT (BEETROOT
SOUP) - serves 4
Ingredients
3 medium beetroot, trimmed
and scrubbed
1 Tbsp olive oil plus extra for roasting the beets
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 medium onion, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped
1 medium potato, diced
1 large carrot, grated (reserve a little for the garnish)
750ml beef stock
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
sour cream or plain yoghurt to garnish
salt and black pepper to taste
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
Rub the beets and thyme sprigs all over with olive oil and roast in the middle
of the oven for about 90 minutes or until the beets are soft when pierced with
a sharp knife. Allow the beeets to cool, then peel and cube.
In a large saucepan, heat
the olive oil, then add the onion, celery, potato and carrot and sauté for 4-5
minutes until they begin to soften, then
add the beet cubes, reserving a few for garnish. Add the stock and allow to
simmer for 45 mins, stirring occasionally, until all the vegetables have
softened and the potato cubes can be crushed with a fork.
Remove the saucepan from
the heat. If it is too thick,
add a little more stock or hot water. Return to the heat and add the vinegar
and sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the reserved cubes of beetroot
and heat through. Test for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.
Ladle into bowls and top
each with a generous spoon of sour cream/yohgurt and a sprinkling of grated
carrot. Serve immediately with crusty bread.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

This was a great meal. I found this on one of the blogs I subscribe too. The only difficult part is making the stock but once it is made it is easy going. It is flavorful, filling and a delight to eat. Once the stock is made you can freeze it in portions and then use it as you wish. Getting the vegetables and, in this case , the chicken ready is easy. You can also use pork, shrimp, or any kind of fish for this dish so it has endless possibilities. Follow the link for the recipe and don't be intimidated by the instructions. Once you break them down they are easy.